Introducing non-cinephiles to film

I like DePalma's stuff a lot, but Body Double is not as good as Blow Out. I would also say it's not as good as Diabolique, which sprang to mind first for me when I thought about Hitchcockian stuff.

And no, DePalma's stuff is not better than any Hitch's best films, IMO.

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Okay, let's try and walk slowly in order to clarify the basic points that have been made here.


Let's start with what isn't being said



1) No one is saying opinions aren't subjective. No one is saying our feelings towards movies and whether we like them or not aren't personal.


2) No one is calling for there to be only one 'truth' about how a film can be good. There are many competing and contradictory ways in how a critic can defend their opinions and feelings.


3) There isn't any movie that everyone HAS to like. There isn't any movie everyone HAS to dislike. Art is not a dictatorship.


4) No one has to make nuanced and informed criticisms about a film if they don't want to or are unable to


5) No one has to like movies for anything but entertainment purposes


6) No one even has to watch movies



Now here are a few things that are being said



1) Just because opinions are subjective, does not mean they are exempted from scrutiny.


2) Not all opinions are created equally. Some are better than others. To use an obvious example, if I said Citizen Kane is stupid because it's just about a fat guy who likes tobogganing, while not entirely inaccurate, it's a bad criticism because it is an incomplete description of what the movie is actually about. Also, Rosebud is a sled, not a toboggan.



3) Even though no one needs to like a movie for anything beyond entertainment purposes, it clearly can be more than this. All of this has been detailed in multiple posts by Minio. I'm not going to repeat all of that, because movies can be a lot of different things. Lots and lots.



4) Entertainment is in the eye of the beholder. Since people love to throw the subjective word around a lot in defense of terrible criticisms, it shouldn't be hard to understand this also applies to what people are entertained by. To some a seemingly dull film like Jeanne Dielmann is entertaining for the feelings and thoughts it provokes and unveils.



5) Insinuating that no one else can be moved or entertained by a movie because that was not your experience is obnoxious, stupid and painfully solipsistic. People (usually) aren't lying about this or play acting being smart and cultured if they like something you don't. They just like it. And guess what, you can accept this fact and still dislike it all you want.



6) Talking about why films matter and what they can do is very much an element of their value. A film that generates discussion is in and of itself of worth, no matter how good we think the movie actually is. The film doesn't necessarily end once the credits roll. A film also contains all that it leaves within us.



7) Shutting the door on what a film should or shouldn't be doing, just because of your own personal preferences, inevitably will lead to the death of the artform. If everyone suddenly agrees that certain things always need to be done in a movie, or certain things should never be done, movies are doomed. Art needs room to breath and exist and regenerate and mutate, otherwise it becomes irrelevant. This is why pushback towards the kind of dogmatic thinking that has become so cloying in this thread is essential.



8) Not all art is for everybody. And just because some of it isn't for you, doesn't mean you should resent its existence. It's there for somebody else. Let them have it

Also, Minio is correct about Body Double.

You guys are just busting my balls at this point! Really though, I will give Body Double a re-watch, as I haven't seen it in years, so my memory of it is hazy. But man...Alfred freakin' Hitchcock, you guys!

Hitchcock can probably be rightfully called a genius. Along with Eisenstein and Griffiths and a few others, he basically is one of the guys who not only codified the language of cinema, and saw its expressive potential, but then also somehow mastered it in a way that also made him enormously popular to general audiences. He's a gift that keeps on giving.


I wouldn't call DePalma a genius. To me that's a very specific word with a very specific kind of meaning, and there aren't many of them in any field. But what DePalma did brilliantly is he expanded the genius of what Hitchcock had already done. He made it so film became about the actual film, not the story, not the realism. And on this level, it's why I (and it seems Minio) have a stronger affinity for him than Hitchcock.



All of Hitchcock's films (or maybe just nearly all) are rooted in narrative. All of his revolutions and innovations were done in service of unveiling the hidden truths of the stories he was telling. The characters he was depicting. And I'm of the mind that film, when tethered too tightly to its narrative, feels constricted. It doesn't take flight. For a film to do this, it has to be more about the glorious combination of the composition and the editing and the sound and the tone and the attitude. It has to be about the 'film' to transcend and become something nearly dream like. That is the thing I'm usually looking for in a movie.



Hitchcock, genius that he is (and, just so it's clear, still definitely one of my favorites, even with the handicap that he is very much a narrative based filmmaker), never did that for me in his films. And DePalma does it all the time, possible never more so than in Body Double.

I've never really "gotten" DePalma. My theory is that he's kind of a vibes director, and that vibes directors are polarizing in unpredictable ways. You either get the vibe or you don't, and because it's so thick with a certain kind of atmosphere, if you're not really into it, it just feels like one big stylistic blob.

Hard disagree. I've rewatched both recently in the hope of reassessing Blow Out and while the filmmaking behind it is superb (and the fireworks shot might be De Palma's best shot), as a whole, this is one of De Palma's weakest from the "early" period. Too much plot.

Diabolique is great but it's neither better than Blow Out nor one of Clouzot's best.

I prefer Phantom of the Paradise and Blow Out to anything by Hitch, but Hitch probably has more great movies under his belt, even if by the sheer fact he made more films altogether (he has some weaker ones, too, sadly).

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I couldn't put it into words better than you did. This is exactly what I'm looking for in cinema. (Well, not just that, but you get the idea.)

I'm stealing this description!



Yeah, atmosphere is a big part of it. Long takes is another. Both create something really amazing.

Well, in terms of clear direct influence that was successful, there was a streak of lots of Hitchcock inspired films from him in the late 70s through early 80s (ones that were basically unofficial remakes or mash-ups in the case of Obsession).

Unless you're saying Birdemic is an unheralded masterpiece?

Wait, it isn't?

I think it's very much heralded.

And my initial reply was made without seeing the subsequent De Palma/Hitchcock discussion. I'm not as big on either as most people. One of the critics I follow, who did vote in the Sight & Sound poll, included both Vertigo and Blow Out on their ballot. I should probably read one their reviews of the latter at some point. One of the many things I kept meaning to do, but then didn't get around to.

If we’re discussing De Palma classics, one must not forget to mention Hi, Mom! Or Get to Know Your Rabbit.

Oh, that's two different titles. Not one long Dr. Strangelove-type title.
I was about to say, "that title reads a lot creepier and uncomfortable these days."

Vertigo is a masterpiece but it could use more atmosphere and less talking. Hitch (almost) always follows the 'serve the story' mantra, which seriously hurts his movies. They're great, and all that, but they just don't flow and don't move (me) like other masterpieces of the time.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog might actually be my favorite Hitchcock. It's silent, which helps the atmosphere, and there's no dialogue to disturb the atmosphere. It's a riveting movie and a seminal one for Hitchcock, too. His mania of blondes is already well pronounced in it.

I've never loved Vertigo the way so many others do. It's near the bottom for me, among Hitchcock's films, rather than the tippy top that it seems to be for people in the aggregate.

In some sense, it's the least Hitchcock film he ever made. You've all heard the bomb-under-the-table quote. Vertigo seems to eschew that. The audience is as much in the dark as the protagonist, which isn't bad in and of itself but stands in stark contrast to his own stated philosophy of what makes a film thrilling.

That said, it's definitely one of those handful of classics I watched in rapid fire, to essentially "catch up" on my viewing, sometime in my 20s, and now and then I go back and rewatch one of those and find I like it a lot more later in life (like Lawrence of Arabia).

Yeah, I rewatched Vertigo after about 11 years only to find out I was right the first time I watched it (that it's among Hitch's best).

The atmosphere (regardless of what I've said before) is very good and the cinematography is dazzling:



Fassbinder liked the camera spins, too, taking it to extreme in Martha:

I have to disagree. Look at David Lean. His films are very strongly tethered to narrative, along with the "glorious" combination of composition, editing, sound, tone, attitude and we allow him to tell his story for much longer than the standard 90 minutes.

David Lean is great precisely because of the technical brilliance. I can't remember any of the stories from his films, but I can remember some of the shots.

I'm hardly ignorant. As an urban, degree possessing professional, I can even read. The issue is that a lot of people I speak to have not been in a theater in a long time, MAY watch a movie if they've heard about it on their home video but only MAY go to a theater to see a blockbuster franchise movie, although those are rare. The more pretentious it seems (like calling it "Cinema", especially with a capital C) they less likely they will go. I'm not referring to uneducated luddites here, but people with jobs, college degrees and houses. Their entertainment/exhaustion/cynicism quotient is full, as is, and movies are seen as entertainment. They'd rather sit in front of the big screen and watch somebody play golf. If I ever start doing that, please call a doctor.

I'm somewhat of an outlier there because I don't just see movies, but I go downtown to do it and have dinner. I like that stuff. The curious thing to me is that when I see some of those people, they seem curious about what I've seen in a theater, as though it's some sort of forbidden fruit. Bear in mind, they are people who CAN afford dinner and a movie, but they just don't do it. I admit that I don't understand. Part of me wants to tell them to get their lazy butt off the chair and do something, but that would not be well received.

We have to acknowledge that the hey day of Cinema in theaters is gone, except as a name for a chain multi-plex in a mall. It's been gone for a while. Aside from a few Harry Potter or LOTR openings, it's been quite a while (well before Covid) since I sat in a crowded movie theater. I just hope that some of this, movies in a theater, lasts as long as I do.

I really liked Vertigo but I always felt the ending was slightly rushed.